Sunday, December 5, 2010 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
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Tularosa Basin from Second Bench, Dog Canyon Trail, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM, December 5, 2010
Take a hike
Today was a beautiful, warm, mostly sunny, day and I got a hankering to hike the 3 miles up to the line cabin on the Dog Canyon Trail. It's a nice hike and it's been a couple years since I was last up there and I wanted to make the hike before I head over to Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM for a while.
So off I went.
That picture up there is looking back down canyon at the Tularosa Basin from the Second Bench about 2-/2 miles in and 1,500 feet up from the campground {I stuck a pin in my Night Camps map}. Phew - I'm not used to this!
Night camp
Site 7 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
- Check the weather here
Crayfish Chimney
Late one afternoon I sat upon my camera case beside the path where it wound through the darkest part of the woods, down near the pond, and watched a crayfish building his "chimney," the land entrance to his underwater tunnel. He had just started to work above the ground when I first arrived. He came up through the moist black earth, carrying a ball of it between his two enormous fighting claws. Using the claws as hands, he spread the soil around the hole to form the base of the chimney. He then backed down the hole and after several minutes came up with another armful.